The present invention relates to the field of mouth guards, especially mouth guards suited for athletic and other activities where protection of teeth is important.
Conventional mouth guards are designed to fully cover a wearer's teeth with as much thickness as can be tolerated by the wearer. Some types of conventional mouth guards are designed to be worn on the upper teeth and to redistribute the impact associated with blows to the jaw, mouth, or chin. Such mouth guards are substantially U-shaped and are molded from a moldable plastic precursor, either by molding the precursor to an impression or by softening the precursor by preheating it and allowing the wearer to bite into the precursor to configure the mouth guard to the upper teeth. Such mouth guards include a channel defined by an interior side wall, an exterior side wall, and a bottom wall.
Such conventional mouth guards are often uncomfortable and often interfere with speech of the wearer, thereby causing some wearers to remove the mouth guard often during use, for example at an athletic event.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved, more comfortable mouth guard wherein the wearer's teeth are adequately protected but where interference with speech and breathing are minimized.
Others have attempted to meet this objective but have failed in one way or another. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,524 to Brown, Sr., discloses a mouth guard which includes a front, or labial, wall having a bottom edge spaced a predetermined distance from the lower, or incisal edge of the anterior teeth whereby the lower, or incisal edge is free to engage a wearer's tongue during speech.
The permanent teeth of most humans consist of 16 upper teeth in the upper jaw and 16 lower teeth in the lower jaw. In the Universal Numbering System as illustrated in FIG. 8, the upper teeth are numbered from 1 to 16 starting on the right side and the lower teeth are numbered 17 to 32 starting on the left side. The right and left central incisors are numbered 8 and 9, and the right and left lateral incisors are numbered 7 and 10. The bicuspids are numbered 6 and 11. The upper right set of posterior teeth, called 1st and 2nd bicuspids, and 1st, 2ndand 3rd molars, is numbered 1 to 5 and the upper left set of posterior teeth is numbered 12 to 16. The central and lateral incisors and cuspids are considered the anterior teeth. The anterior teeth each have an incisal edge, a labial side, and a lingual side, a labial gum line, and a lingual gum line. The posterior teeth each have a crown portion which terminates at a gum line.
Mouth guards are conventionally formed by first obtaining an impression of the prospective wearer's dentition, i.e., a negative, and then making a cast or positive model of the dentition from the impression. Then a sheet of plastic such as ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) is heated to soften it and is placed on the dentition of the model, after which a cylinder is applied over the plastic and compressed air is blown onto the plastic to “press” it and cool it. The resulting molded plastic is known as the first press, and this process is usually repeated with at least one subsequent sheet being pressed, the second sheet being known as the second press. The second press fuses with the first press and does not separate on cooling.